a. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a system and method used for the diagnosis and/or treatment of tissue. More particularly, the instant invention relates to a system and method involving the integration of control software with a medical device that is configured for performing the diagnosis or treatment.
b. Background Art
Medical systems and procedures commonly involve the diagnosis and treatment of tissue. Conventional medical systems and procedures often involve the application of energy or electrical stimulus to tissue, for example, in surgical ablation procedures associated with endocardial and epicardial applications. An example of such a procedure is epicardial ablation for creating a transmural lesion. Other systems and procedures also may involve various mapping, diagnosis, and/or therapeutic functions or treatments.
Such medical systems and procedures commonly involve both reusable capital equipment and single-use, disposable devices. Moreover, the medical devices associated with such systems often include electronically-controlled tools (e.g., ablation catheters, probes, electrodes, or transducers), which may be software controlled.
Some conventional software-controlled medical systems and devices include a non-volatile storage memory (e.g., EPROM) that provide identification and/or calibration data or information to various types of control units. However, for many applications it may be desirable to provide a medical device or tool that can offer additional benefits) and that, at least to some extent, can be characterized as a “smart” medical device.
Additionally, when a fault is associated with conventional disposable devices, such devices are commonly returned with just the instrument's identification information, such as serial numbers, type of device, or other identification “tags,” embedded therein. Engineers and technicians typically request and obtain logs from the associated capital equipment. Such logs are typically uploaded or transferred to some form of media and are separately provided for analysis. It is therefore desirable for devices and/or procedures that simplify or otherwise improve the fault-reporting process.